Again, very sad to hear this. I’ll stick around a bit to see how things go, but really hope to see some change in this policy.

IMO, allowing higher sample rates would attract more “professional” clientele. When you look at the top rated stock fx and music libraries (not marketplaces like here) they offer higher sample rates. Why is that? Food for thought…

Just curious, do the other market places have similar limitations? Meaning, if I want to purchase a video file, am I limited to only buy in AVI format? Or if a graphic file I can only purchase a jpeg?

BTW, I’m not trying to “stir the pot” or cause any problems. I’m new to selling my samples online and searched all the major marketplaces to see which one suited my needs. AJ initially appeared to be a good fit, but now I’m questioning that.

At any rate, thanks for everyone’s answers and to the original poster of this topic. I’ll try voicing my opinion to the staff directly and see what happens.

buddhabeats truly speaks… If you have an education, from a course on economy you know that deficiency generates demand, and demand creates the competition. I one thousand times thought of becoming your competitor. But as I am not young extremist, and the adult, competent person, I consider so…. This problem our general… Which needs to be solved together… It is necessary to look for ways and exits from it… You perfectly know that on your site not everything is ideal and I would like to correct it together with you… As I to you will give an example the following… I buy from you the file with music for 14 dollars… It is written that it is 44.1 kHz 16 bits… I download it… As a result I receive a MP3 320… It is asked… How you checked this work? ? ?

There’s some serious physics in there, but the main take away for me was that D/A converters can recreate the exact original wave form as long as the sample rate is at least twice the wave form’s frequency. And seeing as even the best of us can’t here higher than 20 Khz, a sample rate of just 40 Khz is technically enough to recreate the exact analogue wave form. Of course this only applies to sample rates – 24 bit is undoubtedly better than 16 bit.

I’d be interested to hear what someone with more technical knowledge than me makes of this.

There’s some serious physics in there, but the main take away for me was that D/A converters can recreate the exact original wave form as long as the sample rate is at least twice the wave form’s frequency. And seeing as even the best of us can’t here higher than 20 Khz, a sample rate of just 40 Khz is technically enough to recreate the exact analogue wave form. Of course this only applies to sample rates – 24 bit is undoubtedly better than 16 bit.

I’d be interested to hear what someone with more technical knowledge than me makes of this.

I guess a lot of audiophiles insist that they can “feel” the frequencies above 20,000Hz even if they can’t typically be heard by most humans? Sample rates should probably be 24bit for music – although if the buyer isn’t planning to do any post-processing it’s probably not a big deal. Sound effects should be in higher bit resolutions by default, as they undoubtedly will be processed. Hell, 24bit should be the minimum for sound effects, 32bit is even more useful.

I have my opinions on the differences between lower and higher sample rates, but that’s not really what I’m trying to get at here. It’s not a matter of “is a higher sample rate better than 44.1kHz” but a matter of “is a higher sample rate PERCEIVED [by our customers] as being better than 44.1kHz”. I believe that’s an important distinction here.

By that I’m saying, is it possible that we might lose potential sales because some of our customers believe a higher sample rate is better? Yes.

Conversely, is it possible that we might lose sales because customers feel the sample rates are too high? No. (With the assumption that there’s a lower sample rate available for download or they’re not paying a lot more for the higher sample rate)

If this marketplace is only targeting the casual home user and has no ambitions in seeing professionals in mass purchasing here, then I think the discussion is done.

However, to attract more professionals (who by the way, continuously spend a lot of money on music and sound effects) I submit that the sample rate and bit depth must go up.

Where do I get this info? My own experiences and colleagues for one. Viewing our competition (other marketplaces, stock library websites, etc) and this interesting survey:

Last June/July, a gentleman conducted a survey for his Masters degree major project. The survey targeted people who use sound effects as part of their work or for fun. In total, 179 people responded. 77% of respondents listed themselves as employed or freelance in post-production [our potential customers].

Ok, boring stuff aside….here comes the good stuff:

The respondents were asked about their preference in bit-depth and sample rate for SOUND FX.

39% = 24bit 96Khz

34% = 24bit 48Khz

2% = 16bit 44.1Khz

73% of the respondents prefer higher bit depth and sample rates. To be fair, 7.5% had no preference or wasn’t sure. I encourage you to take a look at the survey results.

I’ll admit, 179 people is hardly representative, but it’s something. Those people in the 73% category are our potential customers; customers that we might be losing now.

So again, the point isn’t whether a higher sample rate really sounds better, but whether it’s PERCEIVED as sounding better. Based on the above info and personal experience, I would say yes, it is.

So please, let’s not alienate some of our potential customers. Let’s give them what they want. At the very least, 24bit must be accepted. Beyond that, 48Khz is also a must have. Anything higher would be a gift.

For any staff members reading this, please consider this at your next meeting.

All right children it everything is remarkable and interesting, but I you already went not to that party… Not to deviate from a subject, I will give you the help… DVD Audio (DVDA) is a format of storage of music on a DVD disk.
Difference from CD is

there are a lot of channels

high quality

universality – on a disk can be stored some options of record in different formats for reproduction on all systems

possibility of existence of video of a material, photos, texts *

interactivity *

graphic interface *

the connected monitor (a TV/projector etc) is necessary. By the way, it can be and inconvenience – many disks demand for a vosproizveddeniye of several pressing, for example it is necessary to choose a sound track.

Difference DVD Audio from DVD is the sound recording without compression in big permission (i.e. high quality). This record is read only by the players supporting dvd-audio.

Usually ask – why is necessary DVD Audio, simply if to eat DVD? Practically situation following: on DVD Audio music in a multichannel look, with a special mix generally is issued. And on DVD – simply concerts where rear and central channels create effect of presence at a concert hall, it is frequent at the expense of echo addition.
I.e. the main difference – in the contents.

DVD Audio disks are read on any DVD players at the expense of duplication of paths in the PCM/Dolby Digital/DTS formats.
There are bilateral DVDA disks, on one party the layer of high resolution for DVD Audio players is written down, on other party – DVD is simple.
Boxes for DVD Audio usually slightly the bigger size, than for CD and extended up.

buddhabeats said
I have my opinions on the differences between lower and higher sample rates, but that’s not really what I’m trying to get at here. It’s not a matter of “is a higher sample rate better than 44.1kHz” but a matter of “is a higher sample rate PERCEIVED [by our customers] as being better than 44.1kHz”. I believe that’s an important distinction here.

By that I’m saying, is it possible that we might lose potential sales because some of our customers believe a higher sample rate is better? Yes.

Conversely, is it possible that we might lose sales because customers feel the sample rates are too high? No. (With the assumption that there’s a lower sample rate available for download or they’re not paying a lot more for the higher sample rate)

If this marketplace is only targeting the casual home user and has no ambitions in seeing professionals in mass purchasing here, then I think the discussion is done.

However, to attract more professionals (who by the way, continuously spend a lot of money on music and sound effects) I submit that the sample rate and bit depth must go up.

Where do I get this info? My own experiences and colleagues for one. Viewing our competition (other marketplaces, stock library websites, etc) and this interesting survey:

Last June/July, a gentleman conducted a survey for his Masters degree major project. The survey targeted people who use sound effects as part of their work or for fun. In total, 179 people responded. 77% of respondents listed themselves as employed or freelance in post-production [our potential customers].

Ok, boring stuff aside….here comes the good stuff:

The respondents were asked about their preference in bit-depth and sample rate for SOUND FX.

39% = 24bit 96Khz

34% = 24bit 48Khz

2% = 16bit 44.1Khz

73% of the respondents prefer higher bit depth and sample rates. To be fair, 7.5% had no preference or wasn’t sure. I encourage you to take a look at the survey results.

I’ll admit, 179 people is hardly representative, but it’s something. Those people in the 73% category are our potential customers; customers that we might be losing now.

So again, the point isn’t whether a higher sample rate really sounds better, but whether it’s PERCEIVED as sounding better. Based on the above info and personal experience, I would say yes, it is.

So please, let’s not alienate some of our potential customers. Let’s give them what they want. At the very least, 24bit must be accepted. Beyond that, 48Khz is also a must have. Anything higher would be a gift.

For any staff members reading this, please consider this at your next meeting.

That’s a very good point – I tend to forget about the bigger, better, faster mindset of the average consumer. Personally, I don’t need everything to be in the highest resolution or definition (I don’t need to see the pores in people’s faces when I watch television shows or movies) but the average consumer loves that stuff. I find it interesting that video has taken great leaps forward, when the average consumer still get’s their music and sound delivered to them on cheap ear buds or speakers built into television sets, and in compressed formats. DVD and Blu Ray might encode at higher sample rates, but 99 out of a 100 people playing back that DVD or Blu Ray probably lack the proper equipment to take advantage of it. Still, we would be selling to the person producing the Blu Ray or television commercial, so it would seem advantageous to start with a high resolution. I believe the rationale (in AudioJungle’s) thinking is to keep the sample and bit-rates rates where they are because it’s the most COMPATIBLE format. If you didn’t know much about audio production, and you tried to burn anything other than a 44.1, 16bit wav to a cd (for example), you might get frustrated and start smashing things. I think the best solution would still be to let the authors who wanted to do so include higher resolution versions in their uploads, and incorporate it into the description, meta data, and the HTML Forms when uploading.

adammonroe said
If you didn’t know much about audio production, and you tried to burn anything other than a 44.1, 16bit wav to a cd (for example), you might get frustrated and start smashing things

I guess my assumption on this is that people who are looking for music on a stock website would know how to use higher sample rates. The assumption being that they’re producing a video or some type of production that has a more specialized skill set.

As good as some of the music is here, I can’t see too many people searching here for new songs for their iPods; that’s what iTunes is for, right?

And for sound effects purchasers, who are they? At the very least, a web designer, who would figure out how to use a sample if it “doesn’t work”. (but there’s me assuming again! haha) I can’t think of a reason why the average person would want to purchase a sound effect. Although today’s consumer is presented with a lot more software for DIY projects and yes, maybe for something like making a Halloween spooky sound CD to scare the trick-or-treaters. But those types of people IMO are the types who will research and figure things out for themselves.

Anyhow, all of this just food for thought. I hope someone is listening!

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